Marketing and advertising talent flocking to the Philppines, new study finds

Philippines has come up tops as the in-demand market for advertising and marketing professionals in South East Asia.

Overall hiring activity in the country reached double-digit growth of 16% for the month of August, in line with the growth displayed during June and July, at 13% and 16% respectively. This is a huge contrast to Singapore and Malaysia as both countries failed to clock in as sizeable results for the month of August, with Malaysia experiencing an annual decline of 8%.

In addition, Singapore’s year-on-year growth for marketing talent in August was just 1%, marking a 5% drop from the 6% annual growth recorded in July. Malaysia was consistent in its subpar performance in terms of growth in the advertising and marketing sector, reporting an 8% annual decline for both July and August.

When it comes to the online growth of marketing and communication roles, the Philippines also excelled, recording double-digit growth of 18% in August, while Singapore and Malaysia recorded a year-on-year decline of 1% and 4% respectively.

These findings are the result of the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI), a monthly gauge of online hiring activity across Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines tracked by Monster.com.

"Mobile advertising and marketing is slowly gathering steam in a number of South East Asian economies. This can be attributed to the fact that a number of countries in this region, especially developing ones rely massively on smartphones and similar handheld devices to access the Internet,” said ?Abhijeet Mukherjee, chief executive officer for Asia Pacific and Middle East? at Monster.com.

“There has been a flurry of activity in the industry regarding mobile-optimised applications, websites and content. Digital marketers and content experts must upskill to match this demand in the workforce to be mobile-ready.”